This is why we eat turkey on Thanksgiving
This American tradition can actually be traced to Mexico
It is almost impossible to find a Thanksgiving turkey in Rome. I know, because in November of 2009, I scoured the city on an epic, weeks-long poultry hunt. Advertisement
Ho bisogno un tacchino intero, I said to every butcher in town, trying, in bad Italian, to communicate that I needed a whole turkey.
Per… la festa Americana? They apologized; there wouldn’t be turkeys anywhere until Christmas, and even then, they d be tough to find.
Finally, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, at a noisy market in Esquilino – the Roman Chinatown – a burly man nodded, put down the pig’s head he’d been holding, ducked into a refrigerated room and reappeared with the largest turkey I have ever seen. It still had feathers.